Traditionally, electrical power is generated by utility companies at a power plant and distributed to the location where the electricity is needed. The power plant as well as the collection of wires, transformers, towers, poles, and so forth required to transmit the electricity to its destination is collectively sometimes called a utility power grid, or “the grid.”
Most power plants generate electrical power through three conversions: by converting potential energy to thermal energy, then thermal energy to mechanical energy, and finally mechanical energy to electrical energy through a heat engine, a turbine, and an electrical generator, respectively. More specifically, the heat engine burns a fuel to yield thermal energy, which transforms water into steam. The steam turns the turbine, generating mechanical energy. Then, the mechanical energy is used by the generator to turn a magnet within a loop of wire, producing electrical energy, or electricity. This electricity is then modified and distributed to an end user via wiring, transformers, and other elements of the grid.
The traditional model's heat engine consumes fossil fuels and harms the environment in the process. Most commonly the heat engine burns coal, oil, and natural gas, which consumes natural resources and creates pollution. In a nuclear power plant, a nuclear reactor generates heat by nuclear fission and produces radioactive waste.
In order to conserve fossil fuels and preserve the environment, engineers and others seek to create electrical power using “sustainable” power sources, or those that do not consume fossil fuels or create harmful byproducts. Most efforts are targeted at the heat engine step, but some (such as solar power) bypass the heat engine step altogether.
Presently, sustainable power sources supply power to the power grid, the home, and the consumer vehicle. At the power grid level, wind or water turbines harness the flow of wind and water to turn a turbine. At the home level, solar power (“solar,” “solar energy,” or “solar power” herein) uses one or more photovoltaic modules to transform light energy into electricity. Solar power is an increasingly appealing and feasible option. Additionally, batteries capable of powering a home for a short time (“battery power,” “batteries,” or “battery” herein) use reversible electrochemical reactions to store and provide electrical power as needed, which allows electrical power to be reused, rather than wasted or unnecessarily returned to the grid. At the vehicle level, electric vehicles utilize rechargeable batteries to power cars.
And yet, sustainable power sources have not yet replaced the grid for several reasons. For example, the availability of sunshine or wind is unpredictable. Additionally, in many cases an electrical vehicle's rechargeable battery provides far less usable power than a gas or diesel engine.
Therefore, many consumers seek to reduce their consumption of grid power while simultaneously utilizing sustainable power sources. This could involve mindful efforts such as turning off appliances when not in use, or installing power-consumption monitoring devices. An exemplary effort in this regard can be seen in the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 8,255,090, incorporated by reference in its entirety herein. Disclosures such as this provide for careful monitoring of electrical power consumption, as well as ways to limit such consumption. More specifically, monitoring devices such as provided in this disclosure connect to a power source and a power-consuming device in order to measure, monitor, and if necessary alter the power-consuming device's electrical power consumption. Unfortunately, this disclosure and others like it suffer from one or more shortcomings, such as an inadequate design for the present purpose.
Yet, supplementing grid power with sustainable power at the home level while also optimizing the home's electrical power consumption can create significant cost and feasibility problems. For example, a wind or water turbine is prohibitively large and overly expensive for most consumers, and solar power equipment can be large, bulky, and costly.
Additionally, sustainable power sources are associated with significant installation costs as well. These costs come in the form of equipment, labor, and time. With respect to equipment costs, solar and battery power often require independent sub panels, circuit breakers, wiring, and other associated elements. Additionally, both solar and battery power require power conversion equipment. Solar power produces, and battery power stores or releases, direct current (DC) electricity. However, most household appliances only utilize alternating current (AC) electricity. To meet this challenge, an inverter is necessary to convert DC electricity to AC electricity. Optimizing such inverters is therefore of high interest to the solar energy industry. An example of such optimization can be seen with respect to the disclosure of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0281444 A1, incorporated by reference in its entirety herein. Even with such an inverter, however, some electricity-using devices still have difficulty utilizing converted solar power electricity.
With respect to labor and time costs, the homeowner has more choices. One option is to engage a professional electrician to install the solar or battery systems and thereby ensure the final installed product is safe. The electrician, however, may charge a high rate for service. Another option, favored by some consumers, is to avoid this cost and install solar or battery electrical power systems using the consumer's own time and resources. What often happens, however, is that the amateur electrician must often install solar sub panel systems or battery systems that require the user to manually switch the main residential panel to solar or battery power. In other words, while it may save labor cost to install solar or battery by one's self, the ongoing cost in time makes the process consistently burdensome.
What is needed is an assembly, system, and method that distributes, monitors, and controls electrical power to and from one or more homes by providing for 1) a plurality of interconnected solar, grid, and battery electrical power systems and sources, 2) a monitoring device that connects these systems and sources and that automates, monitors, and manages the home(s)' electrical power usage, and 3) a configuration that lowers labor costs and delivers an aesthetically pleasing visual effect.
Some other proposals for such an assembly, system, and/or method have been made. One example is U.S. Pat. No. 8,700,224 to Mathiowetz, the disclosure of which is incorporated in its entirety by reference herein. This disclosure generally provides for a single-point plug in system that utilizes a Meter Jumper Plug and a Meter Jumper Panel to accept and distribute electricity from extra-grid sources such as solar power into an existing main service panel at a home or small business. While this disclosure does provide for several advantageous features, such as IP networking capabilities that can turn individual appliances on or off and that can manage overall demand for electricity during peak demand periods, this disclosure unfortunately discloses an unwieldy retrofit installation process wherein the original electric meter must be removed and a Meter Jumper Plug installed in its place.
Another attempt can be seen with respect to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0264739 A1 filed by Errington, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety herein. This disclosure generally provides for a modular power management system that may be wall mounted and configured to allow a homeowner to plug in and manage various electrical power sources via a backplane that accepts the electrical power source connection and a main system microprocessor that manages and distributes the electrical power. While this disclosure does generally provide for a modular and adaptive electrical power management system that monitors electrical usage, it lacks a turnkey installation approach and generally lacks the ability to effectively optimize power usage from a remote location.
Yet another attempt can be seen with respect to U.S. Pat. No. 8,350,697 to Trundle et al., the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety herein. This disclosure generally provides for a “smart” home electricity usage monitoring system that detects the presence of occupants who might use an appliance or other item powered by electricity, as well as records and optimizes the appliance or other item's overall electricity usage. This disclosure also generally provides for remote on/off functionality for individual items based on the home's electricity usage. While this disclosure generally provides for electrical optimization, it fails to provide for energy usage allotments based on contributions from alternative energy sources.
As such, these disclosures and others like them fail to provide for the beneficial characteristics described in the following disclosure. Thus, there remains a need for an assembly, system and method that provides for distributing, monitoring and controlling electrical power.